The Dose26:14How might a social media ban affect my child’s mental health?
If your teenager has spent summer glued to their phone — at home, the beach and even at that campground — returning to school means getting bricked for the bulk of the day.
While you might be thankful for that, after months of potentially unrestricted screen time , your kids may experience withdrawal.
A growing body of research found symptoms of withdrawal range from anxiety and frustration, to difficulty focusing — or even instinctively reaching for a device and unlocking it without thinking.
And the pull can be even stronger on a developing teenage brain.
Dr. Shimi Kang, psychiatrist and clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia, said parents should expect some level of withdrawal as teens shift between regulated and unregulated screen time routines.
“I run a summer camp program for kids [and] every Monday we see the impacts of withdrawal,” she said.
An interrupted routine
Breaks from routine — like on weekends or summer holidays — create more opportunity for uninterrupted screen time, Kang said, and the effects can snowball.
Social media in particular can interfere with healthy habits, she said.
“We start to see changes in all aspects of routine — including routine regular sleep [and] dinner time,” she said. “It all kind of gets thrown out the window.”
It’s why Kang suggests parents reintroduce healthy screen time habits before their children return to school. They can adjust to that transition and then navigate the excitement — and stress — of a new school year.
“You want to be this firm yet flexible parent,” she said, “moving forward together with curiosity and connection.”
Ease them into it
Start by putting limits on using apps like TikTok and Instagram, says Tracy Vaillancourt, the Canada Research Chair in youth mental health and violence prevention.
The University of Ottawa education professor recommends setting clear boundaries for how frequently teens will use social media, for example, setting aside 30 minutes a day.
“When you look at behavioural modification programs, a lot of times parents will say they don’t work,” Vaillancourt said. “Yet they work very well when they’re applied consistently.”
The challenges of going cold turkey
At 16, Adil Mukhi knows how hard it is to quit social media. Last year, the Mississauga, Ont., high schooler decided to cut out social media for a month, part of the No Social Media November challenge.
Around him, everyone seemed to be glued to their devices.
“They’re sitting right beside each other and they’re playing the same game or they’re scrolling on their phones,” he said. “They could have been talking or spending that time actually building their friendship.”
He held out for two weeks.
Then, he found himself bored in class and turned notifications back on.
“I kind of broke,” said Mukhi.
That slip isn’t surprising. Mental health studies and a Los Angeles jury agree: social media is designed to reel you back in, despite the knowledge that it can be harmful.
Just last week, Meta agreed to make changes to Facebook and Instagram and pay up to $18B US in a settlement sparked by allegations its platforms were designed to be addictive to children and youth. Those changes including restricting access to just two hours a day for teens on those platforms.
In Canada, there may soon be more buffers. The pending Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34) would ban kids under 16 from social media, though it includes exemptions for platforms that put “adequate safeguards” in place.
Vaillaincourt compares social media to gambling, using an “intermittent schedule of reward” that keeps brains, especially developing ones, hooked.
The federal government has introduced a bill it says will make social media and AI chatbots safer for children. It includes a ban on social media accounts for youth under 16. Ottawa Morning’s Rebecca Zandbergen spoke with Dr. Gary Goldfield about his research into the impacts of social media on youth.
Like a slot machine, it doesn’t provide consistent positive feedback, she said, so you can get caught up in scrolling until you see something that clicks with you.
“You don’t know what the pattern is, so then it makes it stickier.”
It’s why tapering those rewards is easier for your brain to handle, she said.
That’s what Adil ended up doing.
Rather than giving up on the challenge, he changed the parameters, allowing himself time on social media for specific hours of the day and in certain environments — like on the bus.
“That went pretty well, actually, and until now I’ve kind of managed to keep it within that range,” he said.
A way forward
But tech-savvy parenting isn’t just about setting limits. It’s also about teaching kids the healthy ways they can use it, said Kang.
Think step count challenges or mindfulness apps.
“Healthy tech is anything that leads to positive community building, creativity and learning and self-care,” Kang said. “That’s what we want to guide young people to do on tech.”
